The content and structure of the Vedic ritual - an enquiry into the common element Prof. DIPAK BHATTACHARYA, Santiniketan 1. Introductory: a.The aim and title of the paper. b. Previous works c. Some recent works d.The arrangement of the topics 2.Purpose orientation of ritual 3. The common ingredients of ritual: imitation, identity and extension of power - – six cases not counted as magic CaseI.Pravargya: Mahāvīra pot CaseII. Agnyādheya: abhiśvāsa- ucchvāsa Case III. Soma drinking Case IV.The Maṇḍūka hymn.RV 7.103 4.Note on the oblationless sacrifice and prayer-ritualCase V.Mantranaya: Main ritualCaseVIa.Śākta and early Vaiṣṇava tantra (Jayākhya-Saṃhitā) Case VIb.Bhakti and ritual in later Vaiṣṇava tantra (Lakṣmītantra) 5 Note on the meaninglessness of ritual 6. Resumé7.Identity with and extension of power from the archetype with or without imitation -- three cases of ‘magic’ Case VII. Producing power of learning: AVŚ 1.1 Kauśika-Sūtra 10.1-3Case VIII.Treatment of partial paralysis AVŚ 6.80 (AVP 19.16.12- 14)Case IX. Applying a catheter.AVŚ 1.3 8.A note on the prayer and its style 9.Summary of the cases treatedDiagram 1 10. Comments on the structure Diagram 2 Diagram 3 11 The imitation of Christ12. Further problems Bibliography 1. Introductory 1a. The aim of the paper The primary aim of the paper will be clear from its title. The reason for taking up this topic is the fact that though the Vedic ritual has been subjected to detailed treatment by philologists, most of the treatments have mainly aimed at the description of the rituals, one does not find much ofenquiries into whether there is any basic similarity among them. This purpose, it appeared to me, is best served by examining,how the operation of the ritual leads its performance towards the desired end.This is not a totally 1 unexplored aspect but the studies made till nowhave been sporadic and limited to individual rituals (eg., Eggeling: SBE 43: 1894) and without any attempt to take a theoretical stand based on the enquiry. It is expected that a more extensive study involving the analysis of the contents of quite a few rituals as inter-related elements, as aimed by us, will conduce to clarity regarding the operation of the ritual of which a comprehensive idea can thereby be formed. As for the traditional interpretation of the Vedic ritual, a purpose is recognized by the Mīmāṃsakas but not any analysis of the mode of operation. The theory is that one does something according to the canons and attains heaven. The Mīmāṃsā polemics centresaround the consistency, authenticity etc of the Vedic injunctions. Some commentators and1modern thinkers have put emphasis on the spiritual aim of the sacrifice while most have remained silentwith implied acceptance of the well-known give and take theory that came to great prominence later but was not so in early Vedic stage. To make things more complicated a few philologists have denied the very existence of a purpose in the ritual2. As we have tried to show (1c and 5c) this idea is wrong. An examination of the mode of operationcan serve other purposes too. Till now scholars go by the traditional mode of classification of the Vedic ritual that distinguishes between the śrauta and gṛhya varieties.This classification depends on whether the ritual has been prescribed in the Brāhmaṇa literature or not. They differ in detail and the amount and nature of implements. But one may like to know if there is any essential operational similarity? It may be noted that the above is not the onlyway of classifying the rituals. Scholars also classify into magical and non-magical rituals. Here the aim of the ritual serves as the criterion of classifying. And here too one does not speak of any operational peculiarity. The net result of adopting these different criteria with the immediate need in mind is that though there are popular ideas about the classification of ritual like magical, spiritual, śrauta, gṛhya etc., a uniform method is lacking. Some are based on purpose (magic, spiritual), some on source (śrauta, gṛhya) but these do not take into 1Sāyaṇa on the caturhotāraḥ in the Taittirīya-Āraṇyaka; Sri Aurobindo etc. 2Staal 2004.Apparently Kashikar, too. See below 2 consideration the operational aspect that is to say how the operation serves to meet the end of the ritual. We should of course speak of the exceptions too.Eggeling analysed the Cayana and found out its purpose and modus operandi, so did Magoun in the study of the Āsurīkalpa. Also Frazer made his well-known study of rituals showing how they aimed at some result. These scholars showed that the ritual had a purpose and how that purpose was supposed to have been served. But in India ritual study, particularly Vedic, seems to have been kept apart from the Frazer's ideas. The following will further clarify why it has been thought necessary to make a new approach differing from some existing works dealing with ritual, particularly with magic. In some researches (THITE: 1982) just the existence of superstition has been deemed sufficient for drawing the conclusion that there is magic in them. THITE’s treatment of the matter does not lack in details but, obviously, his aim and methodology are different from ours. THITE shows that the ideas of the causes of disease, the methods of curing, of prophylactics and keeping good health are all unscientific and based on beliefs of the influence of evil beings, sins, irreligiousness, holding heretical view, astrological situations and so on. Such beliefs are known as superstition. Now, superstitions play the leading role not only in medical treatment but in the daily life of pre-modern people. But a ritual is not mere belief. It is an operation executed along with prayers with the belief that the operation will have some effect. That means they prepare an apparatus on the basis of those beliefs and use that for treatment. An assertion with evidence that some unscientific beliefs do exist does not explain the operation with the said apparatus. Hence THITE's thesis does not help in research into ritual. Here one must admit with admiration that Dandekar’s ‘Foreword’ to the work (p.9) draws attention to the necessity of throwing light on the operational aspect of medicinal practice: ‘One of the distinctive features of ancient Indian thought is the correspondence which it always seeks to establish between the macrocosm and the 3 microcosm. This feature is very well reflected in ancient Indian medicine……. So far as I can see Dr. Thite has not developed this point sufficiently.’ Dandekar hits at the right point by stating a vital positive feature of Indian ritualism that THITE had missed. And it is here that our approach differs from the majority of the existing ones. Our enquiry into ritual and allied matters follows this line. It has been made irrespective of the existence of superstition in ritualjust aiming at finding out the operational mechanism. Since maximum misunderstanding rises around the concept of magic, one of our aims has been to understand whether the mechanism for magical cure differs from what goes on in the name of non-magical ritual. Among THITE’s predecessors, WINTERNITZ [(1907) 1927: 120] speaks of ‘priests of magic’ in which the function of the priest is combined with that of the wizard without stating how and why the two functions differ. There is an underlying axiom that the function of the non-wizard priest is altruistic preaching of truth and love. CALAND (1900) too, apparently, took the ethics of the aim as the criterion for determining what is magic and what is not. At least, like WINTERNITZ, CALAND too did not state why he distinguished the Atharvavedic ritual from the Ṛgvedic by terming it magic. The paucity of analytical attempts among the writings of the earlier philologists towards clarifying how magic differed in operation from the so called non-magic ritual has not been conducive to the growth of a scientific understanding of the ritual. As far as common usage indicates, it has, on the contrary, helped preserve the wrong notion, not only at the popular level but also among philologists, of the existence of some fundamental difference between non-magical ritual and magic. Now, of course, every ritual has its own aim. One may classify and sub-classify them according to motivation. But a distinction solely on the ground of motivation or ethical stand is misleading. For, motivation itself does not make rituals fundamentally different. By the nature of their idea of cause and effect relation, all of them belong to the arena of what is known as ‘pre-scientific science’.3 3 My use of this term is for the sake of convenience. It does not mean an approval of this categorisation. In spite of a kind of consensus on its employment it is not devoid of the pomposity common to all 4 The employment of the term magic for some rituals while keeping the others free of stigma by calling them simply ritual looks odd in face of the fact that the already done analyses of some rituals, eg.,the one of the Agnicayana by EGGELING (SBE 43: ‘Introduction’ xiii-xv), show that operationally there is fundamental similarity between what is known as magic and what is known as common ritual. An appreciation of this deduction is often missing in the works of philologists.4 While stating these words I should make it clear that analysing magic or witchcraft is not the main aim here. It is the ritual with its complex operation that is the object of enquiry and not only what is known as magic.